Louder Than Words Fest 2025

Although I didn't attend Louder Than Words fest last year, I did miss it, and as such I was looking forward to seeing what was going to be on the bill this year. 

Possibly because we are coming up to punks 50 year anniversary next year, there seemed to be a lot of punk and post punk stuff on the bill this time around and I would expect that to be the case next year too.

I skipped Friday because of work and travel logistics so I didn't get to use my weekend pass until Saturday lunchtime when I travelled into Stockport on a pretty empty 383 and continued onto Manchester on a fairly empty but noisy 192.

Debsey Wykes was on the bill on Saturday lunchtime talking about her book Teenage Daydream. Both she and the guy interviewing her were funny and self depreciating, and I particularly enjoyed the description of Dolly Mixture's appearance on Tiswas as being"Three hours of utter hell". Someone asked her at the end why she thought it was that Dolly Mixture got so much flack from female journalists and she gave a thoughtful response to this which included the observation that many of the female journalists in question had their own tough times and battles to fight on the papers they were writing for. She also talked a lot about the bands collaborations with Captain Sensible and how John Peel had given them a break early on. It was a very entertaining and engaging conversation, which has really encouraged me to read her book.

I missed Clare Grogan because I was in the restaurant downstairs getting food and talking to Helen McCookerybook, Russ Bestley and Mike Dines ahead of their appearance on the punk panel later. 

After that I tried to get upstairs to find the loos and to watch Helen's set ahead of Justin Currie in conversation, only they weren't letting people upstairs yet. I ended up going up in the lift with some people going up to the third floor, getting off at the first floor, using the loos and then narrowly avoiding being flattened in the corridor by a stampede of Depeche Mode fans, who had just been let upstairs. This is not the first time I've been standing out on the corridor at the wrong time at LTW... only this time Jill spotted me and forewarned me that I was about to be flattened. 

I stood at the back for Helen's set as the room was filling up fast and I wanted to be able to get back out again before the talk started. Helen played a series of 15 minute mini sets ahead of various talks over the weekend, and tailored her songs according to the talk in question. Before Justin Currie she played songs from her new album (which I reviewed earlier this year), specifically 'Three Cheers For Toytown', 'The Ginger Line' and 'Reaching For Hope'. Which all seemed to go down well with those paying attention.

Afterwards she introduced me to a US academic, Shelina Brown, who has recently done work on Lene Lovich and we all went to Dave Barbarossa's talk, where he talked about his musical past in Adam & The Ants and Bow Wow Wow as well as reading an extract from his novel, Mute, which was intriguing. 

At 6:15pm I attended the punk panel with Shelina, only we arrived separately and ended up sat several rows apart. I could have moved but, in the end, it's probably best I didn't as I was at the back of the room and this came in useful later when my phone started ringing and I had to flee the room to answer it, nearly flattening some poor woman on the back wall in the process (I did try and find her afterwards to apologise but she left before I got the chance). The punk panel itself was lively and often inspiring, but it was a mass of contradictions, which is what I had expected really. Carol, who performs with Steve Ignorant, and Helen probably interested me the most.

I went home after as I was tired and the buses get increasingly sparse as the evening wears on. The walk from Whitworth Street to Piccadilly was uneventful, save for some very loud drunk students towards the end of the route, but the 192 was marred by the antics of a family of Tik Tok aficionados and their video playlists and loud conversations, leading me to reflect that I actually preferred the late night top deck bhangra and happy hardcore sessions we used to get on the 192 in the noughties. Anything is better than listening to someone playing a video of someone saying "shit" five different ways over and over again. 

The 383 arrived on time and zipped along nicely so I was home for about 9:30m in the end. 

On Sunday I had the previously unknown pleasure of catching the 385 to Stockport. Obviously (as readers of The Bus Chronicles will be well aware) I catch it most days (when it turns up...) but this was the first time I'd caught it on a Sunday. There was no one on it when I got on at 10am, and I did wonder for a bit if it was going to be like that time during the 192 Bus Wars in 2006 when I'd been out after work on a Thursday night and caught a UK North 192 from Piccadilly to Hazel Grove at 2am... and no one else got on it At All. But people started getting on further down the road and it began to feel a bit more normal/less weird then.

I did stay on until Stockport Interchange because I wanted to see the bottle top mural that's just been installed, only I think it must be down the other end to where the 385 stops as I didn't see it. Stockport town centre still seemed very much asleep when I walked out of the Interchange but there was an overturned shopping trolley on the front of Merseyway next to an ambulance, suggesting a poignant aftermath to... well, something anyway. 

It was only 11:10am when I got to Jack Rosenthal Street so I headed for HOME and got a coffee, reflecting as I did so that a latte on top of two bowls of what is essentially vegan sugar puffs for breakfast perhaps wasn't the best start to the day, food wise. A full veggie/vegan breakfast would have been much, much better, or else porridge but I was too busy this morning with clothes washing, cats, writing and organising things. I perused the menu at HOME and vowed to return for dinner later.

On my way to Innhouse I realised that I'd just passed a decommissioned statue of Friedrich Engels, which had originally been installed in Ukraine. From what I read on the explanatory plaque, the statue was removed and re-homed after the annexation of Crimea but pre the all out invasion of Ukraine. Given the statue now lives on Jack Rosenthal Street, I found myself pondering as to whether Jack would have approved of Fred returning to Manchester, albeit symbolically. I suspect he would have done.

The first talk of the day was Russ Bestley talking about punk graphic design, which was both intricate and interesting from a technical and technological point of view as well as from a socio political view. I had a long chat with Helen and Shelina afterwards, which we decided to continue over dinner at HOME. It turned out to be a day for noticing things as I later spotted that the old site of the Hacienda is immediately opposite the entrance to Innhouse, which I'd never clocked before.

Around 4pm ish I found myself wandering into John Harris' room ahead of his talk, under the mistaken impression that people were being let in. It came as a surprise then when the doors were closed, leaving me alone in the audience with John. I was going to leave but he said I could stay and we passed the time before the audience was let in properly by chatting about punk compilations purchased at service stations, why I stopped reading the NME (because in late 1994 they had switched to full on Britpop coverage so weren't writing about bands I liked anymore), and other things. I had picked this talk not really knowing what to expect but, in the end, I actually feel as though it was the most interesting talk of the weekend for me. It might have been that I needed a break from punk by then, but also the concept behind his latest book, Maybe I'm Amazed, is such an unusual one. It revolves around the ten songs his son, who has autism, has been obsessed with during his young life so far and it appears to tell the story of the families journey raising an autistic child while also telling the story of his son through his love of music, a love that appears to have begun when the 18 month old child found and managed to operate one of Harris' old iPods. I talked to him a bit about my day job afterwards and promised that I would read the book. If I'd have remembered, I would have referred him to the interview I did with Ashley Stein and Gillian Morrison in 2023 which, while largely concerned with women and music, did also touch on the issue of gender and neurodivergence in the music industry. But I only remembered this once I'd got home. 

The final talk of the day (for me at least) was Budgie, who is on a book tour promoting his memoir The Absence. He was charmingly meandering and frequently very funny and he gave vivid and positive accounts of each of his bands, but especially of Big In Japan and The Slits. His account of the internal dynamics of the Slits, and Ari's creative process, was particularly interesting to me. 

Helen had already gone so I said goodbye to Shelina after Budgie's talk and left to catch the bus. The 192 was uneventful on the way home, save for the man next to me almost falling asleep on my shoulder. The 358 was late, which was a worry as there are far less buses on a Sunday, but I am very thankful that TfGM have arranged it that even though the 383 and 358 are only once a hour after about 7pm, they've arranged the timetables in such a way as to ensure that there's a bus every 30 minutes. When they turn up on time that is. 

All in all, a very satisfying and stimulating, albeit exhausting, weekend. 

Album review: Helen McCookerybook's Showtunes from the Shadows

Showtunes from the Shadows shows the extent to which Helen McCookerybook continues to develop as a songwriter with each album she creates. This is perhaps best demonstrated by songs such as the optimistic 'Reaching For Hope', devastating 'Spy' and 'Puppet', gleefully satirical 'Three Cheers For Toytown' and whimsically cheerful 'The Ginger Line'. Her observation skills are as sharp as ever, but this is not an overly dark album: There is hope here, as revealed by 'Almost There', 'Reaching For Hope' and 'Send in the Detectives'. Humour is being tempered with darkness, meaning that the album never dips into despair, even in its darkest moments. 

As is fitting for our times, there are a number of explicitly political songs on here, ranging from the sly character study of 'Sixties Guy' through to the full on satire of 'Three Cheers For Toytown' via the more unsettling 'Puppet,' whose pretty tune belies a much darker subject matter. Who is really calling the shots in the music industry? McCookerybook seems to be asking. Who is really the voice of the puppets song? Who has stolen her original voice and condemned her to a professional life trapped like a fly in a spiders web? It's a sometimes uncomfortable, and sad, listen and The 'Margaux Interlude' that follows provides space to think about the questions the song has asked, and answered. Regular readers of McCookerybook's blog will also know that Margaux is the name of one of the puppets featured on the album sleeve. 

There are songs about relationships here, both good and bad, including the irresistible and subtly clever take on gaslighting that is 'It Wasn't Me'. The soaring backing vocals assist the slow build of a song whose hypnotic rhythms match the liars persuasive claims that the narrator must be mistaken and the result is a powerful indictment of the characters crimes and one of the finest songs on what is a strong album. The subversive 'Metaforte' meanwhile takes on a lying lover and delivers its devastating takedown over gently pared down chords that make it feel like a lullaby, albeit one with distinctly un-lullaby esque lyrics. 

The long take on friendship that is 'Reaching For Hope' has a 1950s, almost Doris Day feel to it and it's gentle optimism revolves around seeking refuge in friends and friendship while also acknowledging how the changing times can also change a friendship and yet the friendship will endure. It's a thoughtful piece that reflects a maturity of songwriting that is both powerful and subtle, ending as it does with the line "As I reach for the phone to make that call, I'm reaching for hope as the numbers dial."

Both 'Spy' and 'The Porter Rose At Dawn' feel more like intricately crafted short stories than songs. You feel as though whole worlds are being created, fully stocked with characters and settings and atmospheres. In the case of 'The Porter Rose At Dawn' this might have something to do with the song being part of Gina Arnold's* Raymond Chandler project. It is certainly a sublimely complex and well crafted piece, one that sits somewhere between folk and country musically speaking, with its steel guitar and old time glamour. That glamour has curdled somewhat by the end though, reflecting the Chandler connection. 'Spy' meanwhile, as well as being perhaps the finest song on the album, is a well observed tale of an inexperienced female spy at the airport. Tension is built from the opening scene through to the shift in point of view through to the poignant denouement. It is packed with more action than the average thriller, and is a more thoughtful take on the world of spies than you would expect to find in such books. It is a finely judged song that haunts.

There is gentle introspection on the joyfully quirky people watching song that is 'The Ginger Line', another personal favourite of mine, and a similar travelling theme pervades 'Almost There', a wistful song that is also an album highlight. McCookerybook's voice is particularly good on album closer 'Send in the Detectives', a song with slightly angular chords and an irreverent but strong chorus. It provides an uplifting finish in a confusing world. 

Showtunes from the Shadows provides a mixture of thoughtful whimsy, observational satire, character studies, and poignancy. It marries drama with comedy, vaudeville with modern. And it never fails to surprise and delight. 

* I previously wrote that it was Gina Birch's Raymond Chandler project, but it's not: It is Gina Arnold's!

Helen McCookerybook and David Lance Callahan at The Talleyrand, Levenshulme

I went to see Helen McCookerybook and David Lance Callahan play at the Talleyrand in Levenshulme last night as part of their UK tour. They'd played Newcastle on Friday night, where it was freezing apparently. 

The Talleyrand is friendly little pub on the A6, just opposite Levenshulme Antique Market. Up front it's a regular bar, and the gigs take place in the back room.

The small, friendly, intimate nature of the venue was perfect for Helen McCookerybook's brand of wry acoustic and semi acoustic observational songs. She began her set with 'A Bad Day', which pairs well with later track 'A good life with a bad apple'. There was also the "bit smutty" satire of 'At the bathing pond', the understated but soaring call to arms 'Women of the world', a two fingered salute to Mr Musk ('So Long Elon'), lockdown optimism in the small things 'Coffee and Hope' and the idiosyncratic 'Mad Bicycle Song'. She was on sparkling form, interacting well with the audience who warmed to her increasingly as the set went on. There was even a one woman version of The Chef's 'Let's Makeup', which went down well.

I wasn't sure about David Lance Callahan's first song, which was a slow, guitar only one. He was joined by a very charismatic drummer (sporting a pork pie hat and braces) for the rest of the set though, and I got into it more after that. In addition to the hat he also had an impressive selection of well deployed percussion instruments, and a style of playing that I really enjoyed watching.

I only have vague memories of Moonshake, David's previous band, in that I think they were in the process of splitting up around the time I first started listening to John Peel. The music he was playing last night did remind me of what Moonshake were doing though, in that there was a complexity of sound and a kind of brooding quality to a lot of it. At the same time, you could tell that he'd emerged from a band who appeared on the C86 compilation (The Wolfhounds). There was that post C86 jangly indie pop sound to some of the tracks, though he used these moments judiciously and sparingly, making the audience wait for them. 

I feel like David Lance Callahan and Helen McCookerybook both critique and satirise the mores of contemporary society, often highlighting deeply dystopian aspects, but in quite different ways. His songs feel darker, but hers are just as scathing. The difference is in the musical delivery: Sometimes you smile while sticking the knife in, sometimes you just stick the knife in.

Songs of the year, Number 16: Helen McCookerybook - Wake Up (and Smell the Coffee)

Helen McCookerybook's post lockdown album Drawing on my Dreams was released in October, and 'Wake Up (and Smell the Coffee)' has been a favourite of mine ever since I first heard it. 

It contains a central allegory towards societal dissatisfaction that, like the coffee, is coming to the boil. The core message is wrapped up in a very stylish slice of sophisticated anthemic acoustic pop which is powered by McCookerybook's choppy guitar work and Anne Wood's beguiling violin. 

It's not so much a song of anger as a subtle call to arms, one that's sung with understated charm. It also feels like a song that has the potential to travel far and wide, being heard and perhaps covered by other artists from a variety of different places. Only time will tell.

Album review: Helen McCookerybook, Drawing on my Dreams

As regular readers will know, North London singer/songwriter Helen McCookerybook is no stranger to this blog. 

The punk and post punk alumni of Joby and the Hooligans, The Chefs and Helen and the Horns has been prolific in her output these past five years or so, with albums such as Green and The Sea standing strongly alongside 2020's concept 7" album, Pea Soup.

With Drawing on my Dreams, McCookerybook has created an album that is unmistakably her own but which also nods to one of this years key musical themes: Minimalist introspection fuelled by home recording and home producing.

Lockdown has obviously shaped a number of artistic and creative decisions musicians have made over the past two years, hence the increase in introspective observation, acoustic guitar driven songs and Logic and drum machine orientated tracks. The other side of the coin of course is the "Wooh! Hedonism and glow sticks!" school of thought, leading to a Mercury Music Prize shortlist that was (in the main) relentlessly upbeat this year. The judges clearly signalling with their selection that they were done with soulful introspection after two years of being sat indoors in a onesie with only a screen for company, thank you very much. 

I mention this only because while Drawing on my dreams was home recorded, home produced and contains a number of songs that are fairly introspective, it doesn't feel like so much of a departure from McCookerybook's previous works as, say, Florence + The Machine's Dance Fever or Harkin's Honeymoon Suite both did for those artists. I mean, album closer 'Dear Life' shares a similarly self depreciating sense of humour as Florence + The Machine's 'Girls Against God', but the sound of exasperation north of the river is more pastoral and gently wry than Welch's weary-but-seething-despair over lockdown life in South London.

We open with the gentle finger picking minimalism of 'Beachwalk', where the vocal creates the melody as McCookerybook sings of the healing powers of a good sea walk and the serendipity of random shore discoveries away from the madness of the world.

It is followed by the wistfully pretty 'All I Want', an ode in which she seeks happiness not for herself, but for a friend who is tormented by shadows. It's the kind of singularly stylish and classic sounding song that would have suited both Kirsty MacColl and Doris Day.

Third song 'Wake Up' has choppier guitars and more of a political edge to it, equating as it does the boiling of the coffee with a desire for social change. McCookerybook urges the listener to feed their soul as the violin (provided by The Raincoats Anne Wood) twines in and out of the choppy guitar and sharp/sweet vocals like a smoky cat. 

In 'Amazonia', she returns to a theme she's often blogged and spoken out against: Worker exploitation. The song begins with references to a Bangladeshi garment factory fire, possibly the one in Dhaka that happened last year, but probably also the one that happened in the same region in 2012. Apple's factories in China, which relied on child labour, and "the deep dark depths of the fulfilment centre" of Amazon hell are also mentioned. The song is a lyrically skilful analysis of worker exploitation that has the same kind of restless energy of post punk intelligentsia such as Young Marble Giants. It also harks back to The Sea's title track (a scathing take on the refugee crisis) in the thoroughness of its assessment. 

Equally fierce is 'Pandora', a reference to the unfortunate Greek woman with the box and the ways in which the worlds problems are used as a stick to beat women with. 

More subtly political it seems is the deeply touching 'After the Storm', which has a real sense of gentle catharsis and a world taking a breath following the defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 US election. The song has a pretty pastoral melody and a lovely wistful vocal and is one of my favourite tracks, alongside 'Wake Up'.

'Woodwide Web' is a welcome slice of gently strummed and sung whimsy inspired by the natural world, which showcases McCookerybook's eye for detail and sense of fun. The lyrically poetic 'Little Egret' works on a similar level and shares a similar sense of curiosity and wonder. 

With 'Coffee and Hope' the upbeat tune and lyrics are set off by the choppy guitar and quiet vocal as our author sips coffee and hopes for a better world, a feeling echoed by closing track 'Dear Life'.

Perhaps the most musically ambitious track though is 'Things Like This'. The song features hypnotic short guitar chords alongside a more finger picking style of playing and there is a catchy chorus of "Things like this don't happen to people like me" which sits nicely alongside the crisp drumming of The Go-Between's  Lindy Morrison. Emma Goss also features on double bass and the overall feel is of a slice of classy 60s beat pop. 

With Drawing on my Dreams McCookerybook has signalled a new level of sonic independence as well as a willingness to experiment. The result is a stylish and clever album by a singer/songwriter who is perfectly at ease with herself and her work. 

Drawing on my Dreams is available to buy via Bandcamp

Helen also does a very entertaining blog.

Helen Reddington at Louder Than Words festival

Today I went to see Helen Reddington (neé McCookerybook) being interviewed by the excellent Roisin Dwyer about her new book, She's At The Controls, at Louder Than Words festival. She was on fine form: Articulate, intelligent, funny and self-depreciating. After the Q&A she played a few songs on her guitar ('A Good Life With A Bad Apple', 'Mad Bicycle Song' and one about Barcelona I'm not 100% sure of the title of), which seemed to go down well. It wasn't a huge crowd but, given that she was scheduled against a bloke from Dire Straits and his memoir, it was a respectable number of attendees and the audience seemed to be a nice variety of people who listened and asked intelligent questions. Helen was considerate enough to ask the audience to applaud Roisin and the sound engineer at the end too, which doesn't happen enough.

Normally I'd pay to attend all three days of Louder Than Words but the ticket price has gone up this year and my finances haven't sufficiently recovered from last year to take the hit. Similarly, I couldn't find enough events on the schedule that I wanted to attend to justify paying the ticket price. 

Last year Louder Than Words did go ahead, but as an online only event that attempted to make the best of things during the second Covid lockdown. I didn't attend because I was even poorer then than I am now, plus I doubted that the event would go ahead given that it was announced either just before or during the Greater Manchester local lockdown. 

It was odd being in Manchester for the first time in a year. I haven't needed to go into the city since last November when I was doing exam invigilation work for Manchester College and you forget how enclosed and claustrophobic the ever increasing density of really tall buildings makes you feel. We don't have that in Stockport because we have less tall buildings and those that we do have tend to be both shorter and more generously spaced, meaning the sky gets more of a chance and you don't feel hemmed in in the same way.

After Helen's event a gentleman called Darren from Bolton, who Helen knows through an online art club they both attend, and I adjourned with Helen to HOME next door where we had hot drinks and pizza and talked about music, art, Louder Than Words, work and lots of other things. It was nice though I do feel guilty that I didn't get a round of hot drinks in. 

It was a bit of a day for old friends actually as I'm sure I saw Pascale from Better Buses For Greater Manchester sitting outside Trove with a friend as I went past on the bus into Manchester. On the way home one of my sixth formers from last year said hello to me before heading for the back of the top deck where he proceeded to do the gangster thing with one of his mates.

I was a little apprehensive about travelling into Manchester on the 192 but, if anything, more people are wearing masks at weekends and keeping the bus windows open than they are during the rush hour to work in Stockport during the week. I suspect that weekend bus users may not be commuting to work by bus during the week whereas many weekday bus commuters have quite probably been commuting in large numbers into Stockport throughout all the lockdowns and have become fatalistic and nihilistic re Covid, hence over 90% of them not wearing masks on every bus I catch during the week.

Today was also a day for arsey bus drivers: There was the driver of the 201 outside Piccadilly train station, who shouted at the man who asked him if the bus was going to Stockport 'DOES IT SAY STOCKPORT ON THE FRONT OF THE BUS? NO IT SAYS HATTERSLEY!'. I think he must have felt guilty afterwards because when he had to re-open the door to let someone else on, he did at least shout that the hapless gentleman who'd made this mildly voice enquiry should be getting on the 203 though, in the end, he got on the 192 with me instead. The driver on that bus nearly missed my stop on the basis that he felt I was taking too long to come down the stairs, conveniently forgetting how close the bus stops are together on that part of the route and that it takes a finite amount of time to get from nearly the back of the top deck and down the stairs. I see that the recent pay rise after threat of strike action hasn't improved the temperament of Stagecoach Manchester drivers. Mind you, the driver shortage seems to be getting worse so I expect the remaining drivers are probably wishing they were on strike, increased pay offer or not.

Helen McCookerybook - Songs from the kitchen: Don't be Silly, He Said

Helen McCookerybook's intimate songs from the kitchen performances pre-date lockdown, and I've always enjoyed the relaxed, easygoing tone of them. During lockdown, despite missing the live scene, Helen has been an enthusiastic adopter of the online gig. She performed an online gig for Loud Women back in March, which does unfortunately include a bit of screen freezing, but if you'd like to give it a watch, you can do so here.

Fantasy Festival number 1: The lineup

Zoe Graham: Newly relocated to Glasgow, Zoe Graham is a young Scottish singer/songwriter with three singles under her belt. She's also a Scottish Alternative Music Award winner. You can find her on Facebook here. 

Katy Carr: Polish-British singer/songwriter Katy Carr performs ukulele and electronic piano led folk and baroque narrative history music. She featured in my 2017 Fantasy Festival lineup, and it seemed only right to include her here. You can find out more about Katy over on her website. 

Helen McCookerybook: Frequent readers of the blog will know that Helen is a regular here, both as one of my punk women interviewees, but also in her capacity as a highly innovative solo singer/songwriter. Helen began her career on bass in Brighton punk band Joby and the Hooligans, was a founding member of The Chefs, and then went on to form Helen and the Horns. Helen's 7" album Pea Soup was recently reviewed here, and her album Green is out now. You can find out more about Helen over on her website. 

Maple Bee: Like Helen, Melanie Garside has a long musical history. Beginning as a multi braided front woman in Tabitha Zu in the 1990s (later just 'Zu'), she was one of Katherine Blake's Mediaeval Baebes for a while, served bass duties in sister Katie-Jane's band Queen Adreena before embarking on a solo career under the name Maple Bee. Her most recent album is Little Victories. Future releases are awaited with interest and you can check out her website here. 

Siobhan Wilson: Born in Elgin, Morayshire, classically trained composer and singer/songwriter Siobhan is two albums into a career of rigorous reinvention and experimentation. Based in Edinburgh these days, 2019's The Departure featured a more abrasive guitar sound and included a duet with Honeyblood's Stina Tweeddale. You can find out more about Siobhan over on her website. 

Emma Pollock: Former Delgado Emma Pollock and co-founder of Chemical Underground records has been carving out a solo career for fifteen years now. Her albums are regularly nominated for Scottish album of the year and she featured in the Scottish scene reunion film Lost In France. You can find out more about Emma over on her website. 

Honeyblood: Currently operating as a solo adventure, Honeyblood is the project of singer/songwriter and noise merchant Stina Tweeddale. Formerly of Edinburgh, these days resident in Glasgow, Tweeddale has been composing perfectly executed riff driven punk pop and grunge anthems since 2012. The critically acclaimed In Plain Sight, Honeyblood's third album, was released last year.  You can find out more here. 

First Aid Kit: Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit are comprised of sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg. They are four albums into a phenomenally successful career, and their gorgeous melodies 

and harmonies have allowed them to climb the live music ladder to larger venues at the same time as 

they have been garnered with multiple industry awards and nominations. You can find out more here. 

Emmy The Great: Understated, wry, quiet and well crafted songs always impeccably performed, musician, writer and composer Emmy The Great has been building up a body of work for over ten years now. She has released three albums, has collaborated on a number of film and TV soundtracks, and has an impressive body of work as a journalist. You can find out more here. 

Laura Marling: The great Laura Marling is seven albums into a long and prodigious career that while rooted in folk has become increasingly experimental over the years. 2017's Semper Femina exemplified this approach while 2020's Song For Our Daughter signals a return to her roots, and was a most welcome unexpected lockdown release. You can find out more about Laura over on her website. 

On Helen McCookerybook's Pea Soup and the 7" album as a format

 

Back in January, as the world was just starting to go a bit mad, musician, artist, writer and lecturer Helen McCookerybook wrote on her blog about her decision to create a mini album of short songs on 7".

It's an interesting read, expounding as it does on ideas of 'smallness' and 'bigness' as well as 'loudness' and 'quietness'. 

Her decision to do a 7" album intrigued me in another way: The timing of it. 

Helen began her career back in 1976 as the bass player in Brighton punk band Joby and the Hooligans, before moving onto bass duties in post punk band The Chefs and (later) guitar in Helen and The Horns. She had a long sabbatical from music before returning in the 2000's as a solo performer. 

Previously, when I've heard 7" albums, they've tended to be by very new bands just starting out. Bands who tend to have a lot to say, but who also have very little in the way of resources. Songs tend to be shorter when you first start out, and back in the mid 1990s, pre download, 7" EP's (as they tended to be called at that time) were the DIY format of choice if you were a punk band. 

I have two in my collection, both from 1995: Kenickie's debut, Catsuit City (8 songs), and the Yummy Fur's second or third release, Kodak Nancy Europe (10 songs). Both bands were still teenagers at the time, and the songs on each record are raw, very under produced, and - by and large - very, very short. 'Male Slut', a classic from Kodak Nancy Europe, is probably under a minute long, and the lyrics consist in their entirety of:

A male slut can
Get a drink in the Victoria pub
Unless he
Serves the customers with X Ray Spex
Male slut
Male slut
Male slut
Male slut 
Male slut 
Male slut

Similarly, Kenickie's high speed punk take on the soundtrack to Grease ('Rammalammalamma') also only takes about thirty seconds.

In the case of Helen McCookerybook's Pea Soup, the songs are short, well polished, well produced little masterpieces of songwriting skill and experience. A lot of love has gone into these ten songs, one of which is only five seconds long. 

There's something about the understated nature of McCookerybook's songwriting that lends itself to this format, and I think that's also why it's a format that works so well for punk bands: Simplicity. 

When Kenickie recorded Catsuit City, they could just about play three chords and, arguably, their skills set musically was behind what they were trying to do as songwriters. Listening to that struggle in songs that last between 30 seconds and two minutes is fascinating, even now. The Yummy Fur, having formed their band slightly earlier, were ahead of Kenickie in terms of musical prowess, but not by much: There is a jerky, handmade quality to their songs too, but they feel slightly less frustrated with their capabilities. 

The 7" album is a forgiving format then. In the mid 1990's it was a good way for young bands to flex their songwriting muscles and get a relatively large number of their songs down for posterity without them feeling overawed by the recording process. Nowadays, young musicians are messing around with GarageBand on their laptops long before they play live so, in some ways, the process is slightly reversed. Whether this leads to a greater confidence for young female singer/songwriters when faced with a formal recording situation in a studio remains to be seen. 

For McCookerybook, the process has been cathartic, a labour of love. A seemingly 'small' DIY project over which she has maintained control of every part of the process (even the sleeves are hand crafted and numbered.) Given the highly DIY nature of both Catsuit City and Kodak Nancy Europe, this feels very appropriate. 

Women saving the world?

A retrospective of Ivor Cutler's work is due to be released on Chemikal Underground this month. Titled Return To Y'Hup, it will be released on 24th January and features re-imagined Cutler songs by Citizen Bravo, Raymond MacDonald and friends. A taster single, 'Women of the world' has been released, featuring the vocal talents of Tracyanne Campbell.

I wasn't familiar with this particular Cutler track, and it's fair to say that the Citizen Bravo/Raymond MacDonald/Tracyanne Campbell version is probably very different, but I really love it. It's got a straightforward simplicity to it, both musically and in terms of the message.

It reminded me of a particularly hopeful song by Helen McCookerybook, also called 'Women of the world', and that in turn got me thinking about the mid eighties post punk opus that is Martha and the Muffins 'Women around the world at work'.

McCookerybook's 'Women of the world' feels almost like a re-affirmation of Cutler's message in that it is also a call to arms. But it also feels like a series of observations on female solidarity and a c-change in society.

It was this latter aspect that got me thinking again about the Martha and the Muffins track because 'Women around the world at work' isn't a call to arms at all, it's an observational take on the long view of women's history. It's a roll call of women getting on with things: Mundane things, brave things, ordinary things... while copping a lot of shit along the way. It's the kind of song that is political by its very existence, rather than because it is explicitly a protest song. Its message is oblique rather than explicit.

Each of these three songs could be regarded as feminist, and as a protest song, but taken as a trio they are also a reminder that there are many ways to express this.

Songs of the year, number 21: Helen McCookerybook - At The Bathing Pond (Songs from the kitchen)

Helen McCookerybook's songs tend towards the gently and wryly observational, and this song is based on a true story, which if you've ever seen her perform the song live, you will know. I have seen 'At the bathing pond' likened to Victoria Wood, and I can understand why, but I also think it's a typically McCookerybook song, one that is peculiarly English in tone as well as peculiar in subject. 'At the bathing pond' features on Helen's 2019 album, Green.

Green is the colour

Helen McCookerybook often comes across, at a very casual first glance, as a pastoral folk singer but this is a bit of a misnomer: Musically and thematically, her work is much more complex. This is a reflection of McCookerybook’s musical history both in punk and post punk but also as frontwoman in the experimental band Helen and the Horns, who owe as much to Doris Day as they do to the Monochrome Set. 

Green is an album that encompasses musical nods towards folk, pop, jazz and swing while also containing a lyrical mix of gentle humour, wry observation and the out and out political. ‘Rainbow of the colour green’ features lovely harmonies and gentle melodies, while ‘Where is home?’ is almost French sounding, a gentle waltz of a tune with a perfect accordion sample that is reminiscent of Parisian cafes in the 1950s. It is a lullaby, a comfort blanket of a song. The pastoral lament of ‘New York’ meanwhile is short but equally sweet and ‘Change the DJ’ has an uptempo jazz feel that reminds me of Peggy Lee; it is one of my favourite songs on the album.

McCookerybook is especially good at telling complex stories simply and imaginatively, and this is showcased through two songs in particular: ‘Danse Macabre’ and ‘At the bathing pond’. ‘Danse Macabre’ opens with the irresistible line “Shoplifting books by the ton, piling them high in his room…” and is a giddy adventure of a song. ‘At the bathing pond’, as well as being structured as a great sing along, is a slyly subversive piece that relates the true life story of a peeping tom (plus his wife!) and his voyeuristic adventures at Hampstead Bathing Pond.

Green isn’t without its moments of melancholy, perhaps best demonstrated by ‘These Streets’ and ‘A good life with a bad apple’. There’s also political satire in the form of ‘So Long, Elon’, a particularly strong song:

 “We’re building a big rocket, with space for all our shoes” 

it begins

“with Bitcoin in our pocket, with nothing left to lose.” 

As environmental satire its more Randy Newman’s ‘Political Science (Let’s Drop the Big One Now)’ or Flanders & Swan than it is Barry McGuire's ‘Eve of destruction’, and there’s an atonal quality to the song which marks it out as the missing link between the Raincoats and Kirsty MacColl. Gillian Wood’s cello provides this worrisome note and her playing serves to gently suggest that things have all gone a bit wrong and that maybe we should be more worried about it all. 

This feeling of unease makes sense in the context of ‘21s Century Blues’ which, along with ‘Soldier Joe’, could be regarded as the most openly political of the songs on Green. ‘21st Century Blues’ appears to share similar sentiments to the Specials recent song ‘Vote for me’ only expressed in a more wry, observational narrative, while ‘Soldier Joe’ is about radicalisation and points to the ways in which fighters become victims of their ideology, a kind of modern day cannon fodder for a cause.

The album ends with ‘Saturday night with the London set’, which feels like the most complex song of the album. On one level it feels like the perfect jazz pop summer song, a modern day Spanky & Our Gang, until you listen to the bitingly observational lyrics. Thematically, the song probably has more in common with Blur’s ‘Charmless Man’ than with ‘Sunday Mornin’. But there’s also a wittiness that is more akin to ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion.’ 

I suspect that McCookerybook has witnessed a lot of celebrities and hipsters, who are ageing disgracefully, out on the town, but as the song nears its conclusion you realise that she isn’t just singing about The Beautiful People, she’s also celebrating those people who are merely out on the town having a good time. This realisation epitomises the heart of Green as an album: Even when McCookerybook is angry, she can still see humour and humanity in the situation. 

Punk: Two different generations, two different projects

Back at the beginning of May, The F-Word published an interview I did with Canadian DJ Siobhan Woodrow about her podcast She's A Punk.

She's A Punk launched in February 2019 and making it is a real labour of love for Siobhan: Despite working all day with audio in her day job, she spends her evenings and weekends recording interviews with inspirational punk women and editing those interviews into podcast episodes. She's doing the project entirely independently, DIY punk style.

In a related note, a couple of weeks ago I finally had the pleasure of seeing the finished version of Gina Birch and Helen McCookerybook's documentary film Stories from the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda.

I interviewed Gina and Helen about the project for The F-Word back in October last year, and I wrote about the work in progress version of the film back in 2016, so it was brilliant to see the final version.

Because I really, really love this film and I wanted to write about it for a new audience, I pitched the idea of a preview or review of the She-Punks to Louder Than War, who were very happy to commission me to write it.

Thinking about these two projects, I'm struck by how inspirational they both are. Both were borne of a combination of love and frustration: Frustration that their voices were not being heard. Women have been written out of punk histories for a long time, and it was a need to redress this imbalance that led Gina and Helen to make their film. Similarly, Siobhan began making She's A Punk because she couldn't find a podcast for women like her: Independent, awkward, resourceful women. Punk women.

While Siobhan's podcast could be seen as covering a different generation of punk women to the She-Punks, she has a very wide ranging definition of punk which should see her range of interviewees head off in all sorts of directions in the future. The She-Punks project, on the other hand, is part of a different but related narrative: A patchwork of punk women accounts now being written, published, shared, filmed... Most recently there has been Celeste Bell and Zoe Howe's Poly Styrene book, and Jordan Mooney has also recently published her memoirs. Serendipitously (well, for me anyway...) Between Two Books have just announced that their next book, which will be discussed at British Summer Time fest on July 13th, will be Lavinia Greenlaw's 2007 classic The Importance of Music To Girls. This memoir, while not exclusively about punk by any means, does touch on it. It was published in the same year as Helen Reddington's book The Lost Women of Rock Music, an academic account of punk's lost women musicians. Zillah Minx's She's A Punk Rocker, another DIY punk documentary, was released that year too.

Sometimes I think 'Surely there is enough evidence now? Enough accounts to re-dress this collective amnesia as regards women's creative and cultural input into punk?'. Then I'll read something, or I'll hear something, and I'll know that while we may have won a few battles, we are a long, long way away from winning the war.

An interview with Gina Birch and Helen McCookerybook

I didn't get chance to write about this last week, mainly because I was in a hurry to get the piece posted on The F-Word before our site re-design went live.

Anyway, it's been two years in the making, but... (Drumroll please...)

I have interviewed Helen McCookerybook and Gina Birch about their excellent women and punk documentary, Stories of the She-Punks: Music with a different agenda.

Folk who've been reading this blog for a few years may remember that I blogged about the work in progress version of the She-Punks film back in 2016, when times were simpler, there was still hope in the world (erm, a bit of hope? Maybe?) and Boris Johnson was still Mayor of London (I think we can all spot the odd one out in that sentence...) That was when it was shown at the British Library's conference centre in St Pancras to a rapturous response during London's 40 Years of Punk celebrations.

The finished film receives it's London premiere at Doc'N'Roll Fest on Saturday, and it is well worth seeing. Gina and Helen were very generous with their time and gave me a brilliant interview.

We did the interview at the British Library in the cafe on the ground floor, which I settled in earlier in the day having dragged myself away from the £35 plush toy snake in the gift shop. Then Helen and I walked back to Euston together and I honed my 'Finding things to do at Euston station' skills for an hour and a half.

It was good fun and well worth the wait.

The Chefs - 24 Hours

I have a confession to make.

I hadn't heard The Chefs prior to interviewing Helen McCookerybook in 2009.

But I like to think I've made up for it since.

Get well soon Helen, hope the wrist is healing well X

Helen McCookerybook returns with timely new album The Sea

In late June, the same weekend as I was feverishly working away at my piece on women and music festivals for The F-Word, I received a lovely surprise in the post.

The new Helen McCookerybook album, The Sea, complete with illustrated songbook.

You can tell, not just from the songbook, but from the CD packaging, what a labour of love this album's creation has been: It looks DIY in the best sense, an artefact painstakingly created with a lot of love.

Sonically, this is an album that has a clear and unfussy production that perfectly complements the minimalism of the songs. It seems odd to say it, given Helen's origins in the UK punk scene and post punk scenes of the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s, but the word that springs to mind most often when listening to this collection of songs is 'Gentle'. That said, it is perfectly possible to be gentle but scathing, quiet but raging, fierce but melodic.

Vocally, Helen's voice reminds me a bit of Kirsty MacColl, and the songs themselves have a timeless quality that mean that they could have been classics in a number of different eras from the 1940s onwards. There is the highly evocative 'Summer Days', an ode to summer with a looping guitar and crooned melody, the quirkily Doris Day ish 'Feathers',  and the silvery voiced 'Give Us Another Chance'.

There is also the very catchy and very timely 'Big Brother', a plea to resist the madness of walking unresisting into a cage of surveillance. A gilded cage hung with all sorts of bright sparkly things and bells and whistles, but a cage nonetheless. "You think you're free as a bird: Open your eyes" she cautions. Set alongside Noga Erez's recent take on social media addiction and Tacocat's take on the impact of the smartphone on modern day relationships, we do now appear to be entering an age where people are interrogating the recent and very fast impact modern technology is having on our lives. Which can only be a good thing.

With this in mind, it is worth pointing out that Helen McCookerybook has a very good line in wry observational, often very poignant songs, about relationships going wrong. 'Don't Be Silly, He Said' has a classic feel to it, with a gentle rolling melody and fierce and knowing lyrics detailing the duplicity of a marriage where one partner is straying and the other suspects that this is so. There's also the hauntingly beautiful, wry and vulnerable, 'Happy Ever After Man', a jaunty tune coupled with poignant lyrics. This is not a love song in the conventional sense: It is romantic disappointment, thinking you've found The One, and then discovering that you haven't.

'Who's That Behind The Camera Lens' is, by contrast, a spooky and unsettling affair, which in some respects has a similar lyrical starting point to Siouxsie and the Banshees 'Red Light', in that in both cases the camera becomes both a lyrical character and a sinister voyeur. In this case though, it's not a fashion model but a woman at the seaside who is being imprisoned in the lens, adding a chilling dimension to the jollity of the seaside holiday.

The title track, 'The Sea', is an absolute tour de force of a song. Opening with a  mournful choir, intoning 'Go home... to your war zone', this beautiful and haunting song uses complex lyrical imagery  evoking the peaceful scenery and calm sea with the raging waters and the 'monsters in the deckchairs' who 'damn you to hell'. The arrangements are gorgeous, which only enhances what is a mournful testimony to the past couple of years of inaction and folly when dealing with the refugee crisis. Following on from Helen's collaboration with the Charlie Tipper Conspiracy, 'Femme Fatale', late last year (which was sold in aid of Refugee Action) it is thoughtful and powerful.

'Women Of The World' is a gentle, positive, feminist, call to arms. It has a timeless feel to it so that you could  almost imagine it being used to summon women workers to the ARP in the 1940s just as much as you could imagine it being taken up as a feminist anthem in the late 1960s. A call to 'peaceful arms', it fits nicely between the folky but fierce marching song that is Pretty Girls Make Graves' 'Parade' and the biting post punk long look at history of Martha and the Muffins 'Women Around The World At Work'. I know that this song will definitely endure.

The album ends with a yearning for a utopian future via 'Think Of A Brand New World', but this is no hippy vision, just a quiet wish for something better; What, she asked, if we could start the world all over again? And do it properly this time.

A dream to live by.

Helen McCookerybook, Big Brother Is Watching You, live at Indietracks

This is Helen McCookerybook performing 'Big Brother Is Watching You' in a train carriage as part of the Indietracks festival last year. I have found a full live set of Helen @The Country Soul sessions over on YouTube, which is well worth watching. 

Fantasy Festival #4: The Confidence Festival - Lineup

Katy Carr: Katy Carr is a London based singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist with a sweet, powerful, commanding voice who draws on Polish history and traditional folk music to create music that can be both small and large in scale. Her album Polonia is out now and she will be appearing live at the Lexington in London on 1st October alongside Helen and The Horns and Honey Birch. 

Helen McCookerybook: Helen McCookerybook began her musical life as a punk bass player in Joby in the Hooligans in 1977, she was later a bass player in The Chefs and guitarist in Helen and The Horns. She returned to music making about ten years ago and has just released her latest solo album The Sea. She is currently touring and will be playing The Lexington on the 1st October as part of Helen and The Horns, alongside Katy Carr and Honey Birch. 

Pale Honey: Swedish duo Pale Honey are comprised of Tuva and Nelly. They have been a band for a couple of years now and have recently transitioned from noisy indie rock to a more glacial sound.  'Why do I always feel this way?' was a tense, epic and understated single, and their most recent release is a Pixies/Breeders esque rendition of ABBA's 'Lay All Your Love On Me'.

Basia Bulat: Basia Bulat is a Canadian singer/songwriter whose 2016 album Good Advice was one of Piccadilly Records picks of the year. I would liken her sound to a more indie sounding Adele, which sounds very odd given that Adele is signed to XL (an Indie Label). Basia is playing in Canada this summer.

Hollie Cook: Hollie Cook cut her musical teeth as a keyboard player in the final lineup of The Slits. She has since released two flawless albums of modern day lovers rock. Twice, the most recent of the two, was released in 2014.

Shonen Knife: Shonen Knife, the garage punk band from Osaka, have been around since the early 1990s. Feted by Kurt Cobain, the band have gone through a number of lineup changes but remain resolutely joyously the same.

MIA: The poster girl for modern day agit prop, rapper and provocateur MIA grew up in Sri Lanka and West London. Her unique take on agit prop has inspired a host of other artists, including Santigold and Noga Erez. Her most recent album, A.I.M is out now and she is currently touring. She will be playing the Boomtown Festival on the 13th August.

Christine And The Queens: Heloise Le Tissier, aka Christine and The Queens, created a splash in the UK in 2016 with her single 'Tilted', taken from her first English language album, Chaleur Humaine. A pop star in her native France, Le Tissier's androgynous image and proclaimed pansexuality marked her out as a breath of fresh air and the dramatic and sophisticated electro pop of Chaleur Humaine marked it as a classic.

Helen McCookerybook and Charlie Tipper - Femme Fatale

December 2016: All proceeds of the sale of this sly and stylish take on the Velvet Underground and Nico classic will go to Refugee Action.

Even more so than Brexit, the refugee crisis has been the big story of the year, influencing world events, elections, commentary and media coverage not just in the UK but in France, Germany, Netherlands, the US and beyond in ways that we simply could not have predicted back in 2015.

Beyond the hysterical headlines and attention seeking politics are real human lives, real human stories. And I think that that has largely been forgotten.

Goodbye 2016, hello 2017. Let's hope it's a better year for all of us.

Punk Women in London: A lengthy essay in two chapters

Chapter One:

On Sunday 5th June I got up at quarter past six on what, I would guess, would have been one of the hottest days of the year thus far in order to head out to Stockport at quarter to eight to get the 8:28 train to London Euston.

Across London throughout this year there are a whole raft of events celebrating 40 Years Of Punk, a lot of which I'm not very interested in, but Sundays event was a Punk Women panel discussion at Stoke Newington Literary Festival, thus more worthwhile attending.

I did consider going down by coach and staying overnight but London hotels are so expensive that it worked out cheaper to go down by train and come back the same day.

That said, it was about £50 for the train, about £10 for a zones 1&2 travel card and another £9.80 for a return between Highbury and Seven Sisters, to account for the inconvenient fact that Seven Sisters is in in zone 3, not zone 2. I didn't realise that until I'd got on the tube at Euston then, after umming and arring, bit the bullet and paid up at Highbury. The only other way round it would have been to go from Highbury to Stoke Newington by bus, and I could have done that more easily from Euston but chose not to because it would be harder to figure out where to get off. As it was, I was ten minutes late to the event in the end, so missed most of Jude Rogers introductions of the panel, who were:

Liz Naylor

Helen McCookerybook

Gina Birch

Pauline Murray

Shanne Bradley

I didn't make any notes or record any of the event, but it was very inspiring. Here are some highlights, from memory:

• Liz Naylor introducing the town of Hyde by explaining it's dubious bad luck in having housed, at different times, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, also Harold Shipman. Something that tickled me, but probably not anyone else.
• Pauline Murray's fantastic take down of London's 40 Years of Punk by saying she didn't want to be involved in any of it, but felt as a woman and a northerner that she should do, given the Londoncentric nature of events.
• Shanne Bradley's more concise, but equally eloquent, dismissal of 40 Years of Punk as "bollocks".
• Liz mentioning identity politics, queer issues, Patti Smith and riot grrrl alongside reference to a clip on YouTube of Pauline Murray performing with Penetration amidst a "tsunami of gob"
• Pauline saying she didn't think of herself as being A Woman In A Band at the time, explaining "I was spat at as much as anyone else"
• Helen McCookerybook, when talking about the current generation, saying that "they don't understand how hard we had to fight for the things that are now being taken away from them"
• Gina Birch's excitement at opening the door to a young person selling  newspaper called Revolution the previous week, and her excited cry to the family of "Quick, there's a revolutionary at the door!"
• Shanne's recounting of a Nips reformation gig when Shane MacGowan failed to show and Shanne's daughter sang for them in her lycra sportswear. She was fifteen at the time.
• Liz's dismissal of modern fanzines as fetishising the production methods of the past: "Use a computer!"
• Pauline pondering that 'Don't Dictate' was probably written about "me parents or something"
• Gina and Helen's frank dismissal of 1970s art schools as revolutionary training grounds, with Helen describing Brighton as "A finishing school for rich girls" complete with lairy lecturers and predatory male third years. Gina, meanwhile, acknowledged Nottingham as an interesting art school, but found Hornsey "dull".

Afterwards I was torn between making an effort to be uncharacteristically extrovert and introduce myself to people, or trying to sell some copies of Ablaze! 11 for Karren. In the end, I opted for the latter. I asked the girl at the back of the room, who was running the book stall, if she would be interested in selling them for me, she said she couldn't but that I could always use the empty table next to hers to sell them myself. So I did. I tore a page out of my notebook and fanned out the four copies of Ablaze! I'd brought with me (all eight would have been too heavy) and put my hastily scribbled explanatory note next to them.

A few people seemed interested, but either didn't have money or didn't want to spend it, so didn't buy. But I caught Helen McCookerybook's eye when she was free, and we had a nice chat, and she bought one, as did the lovely Katy Carr, who Helen introduced me to.

Outside, a gentleman connected to July's punk weekender at the Roundhouse also bought a copy, at Katy's instigation, and we had a nice chat. He was coming at punk from the point of view of having been a Jewish skinhead who liked reggae at the time. He now writes poetry, and has a sideline interest in the Vimto statue in Manchester. Which was a nice surprise. He has his picture taken with it whenever he's in Manchester. After a bit, he and his friends left for the pub, Helen left, and I walked back to Stoke Newington and got an overground train to Seven Sisters, then the Victoria line. My train wasn't until just before six, so I stayed on the train instead of getting off at Euston and switched to the Bakerloo line at Oxford Circus to go to Regent's Park, where I had my sandwiches in the sunshine.

Then I got the tube back to Oxford Circus and walked it from Oxford Circus down Tottenham Court Road and Euston Road to Euston station.

A note on trains: They are very nice looking these days, even in Standard, and you get slightly more leg room than you would on the coach, plus the air con is better (seems to work better, is less noisy) and it's a lot faster (Two and a half hours Vs Four hours forty five, minimum) but is it worth the ticket price? No. It should be a flat rate of £40, max. This is based on coaches being about £20, usually.

Chapter Two: 

I'm going to have to do Friday 10th June in stages, as it was a long day with a lot going on.

All week at work the temperature and humidity has been rising, and the rain has made very little difference: It's been thirty degrees, or higher, in large chunks of the building thanks to the air circulation conking out at least twice. Shelving conditions upstairs were unbearable so the staff doing the shelving have been heading out en masse for extra breaks. On Friday morning I watched them from our desk (which is handily located by the entrance doors, which we had left open to the outside) as they stood by the bike sheds in the rain in their jeans and vest tops. Some had brought umbrellas, but most of them hadn't and were making the most of the organic sprinkler system it represented before heading back to the sweat pits upstairs.

I finished at 2pm on Friday in order to walk to Piccadilly to get the 14:55 to Euston for the She Punks film event at the British Library. I did originally try and get Friday and Saturday off as annual leave but couldn't because we're banned from taking annual leave in the first two weeks of June this year, on account of what happened last year at that time when our entire department had a sort of collective nervous breakdown due to the unbearable and impossible workload. You can see a picture from this period if you go to one of my earlier blog posts.  Some leave did get granted, but you had to argue your case, and my line manager couldn't give me more than 3 hours on Friday because Friday was books return day, which is a sort of library armageddon day, and much needed extra staff would be coming in on Saturday to assist with the continuing fallout from it so I couldn't have that either. I don't feel bitter about this, but it did put me in the awkward position of having to inhabit two very different professional worlds in one day, in the same set of clothes, which probably didn't quite come off. Still, couldn't be helped...

It didn't feel too hot when I left work, but I felt very warm but the time I got to Piccadilly. There are so many roadworks, road closures and diversions at the moment in central Manchester and around Oxford Road that it's quicker to walk it than it is to get the bus.

Got into Euston just after 5pm and headed over to the British Library, which is about ten minutes walk away. I wandered in and had a very half hearted look at the punk exhibition, but quickly felt bored with it, having already looked it over on Sunday. So I headed next door to the 'Treasures of the British Library' exhibition, and became engrossed in original literary manuscripts and elaborate bindings. I was looking at the original of Shelley's Masque of Anarchy while still being able to hear X Ray Spex from next door: Very apt, probably.

They start clearing people out at about half five on a Friday, so I headed back out to the piazza and had a snack while waiting for the event, which was due to start at 18:30 in the conference centre. They started to clear the piazza around six ish, so I headed into the conference centre at that point, where a soiree was forming in the foyer that I felt to shy to try and penetrate.

Not long after, they let us into the auditorium, and I sat fairly near the back for optimum view of the screen. It also made a good people watching position.

There were three introductions to the She Punks film. Firstly, a gentleman from the British Library, who made some very good points about the nature of the British Library and its collections, specifically that BL have been collecting, storing and cataloguing punk right from the 1970s onwards. Hence all the fanzines, 7"'s and LP's, and why it was all in such good condition. It hadn't been borrowed, or shipped in, they'd had it all the time. And that that was the whole point of being the people's library, that you collect and reflect the people's history. I also enjoyed his comment along the lines of loud music, stroppiness etc as "Just another day at the British Library"

Next up was Zoe Howe, the chair of the Q&A, then Helen McCookerybook and Gina Birch did a more irreverent and slightly nervous seeming introduction to the film, in which they seemed a bit worried that the audience wouldn't like it. They were at great pains to stress the imperfect nature of it.

It is an unfinished piece of work, and it has a starkness to it that it wouldn't have perhaps if it had been finished, but the starkness is part of its charm. It's a quality that works really well with the content of the interviews, and the narrative structure of the film. The interviews are so powerful in themselves, and so refreshing, that it didn't really need more to be utterly absorbing. That said, I am coming at it from a point of view of someone who has been working on a women and punk project for seven years now, and who has interviewed some of the people in the film, but that didn't matter because it still felt really fresh, and very inspiring. Some of it was quite harrowing, but there were also some very funny bits, and the film overall had an energy to it that made it feel very uplifting and inspiring, but in an honest and truthful way rather than in a mawkish and contrived way.

Quite simply, it is a film that should, and must, be seen by as many people as possible. It has so much to say, about punk, about hidden histories... and much more.

Afterwards, Zoe chaired a Q&A with Gina Birch, Helen McCookerybook, Tessa Pollitt, and Jane Woodgate, which was riveting. Someone asked about what the kids thought about their careers as punk musicians, and when Gina said her daughters weren't as into it as her daughters friends, there came an indignant cry from the back of the auditorium of "THAT'S NOT TRUE!" followed by "I JUST CAN'T TELL YOU THAT I DO BECAUSE YOU'RE MY MOTHER!" Helen decided she wouldn't bring her daughters into it on the basis that they were both in the audience too. I don't remember all the Q&A, but I do remember a lengthy discussion themed around punk and feminism which took a number of twists and turns.

After the Q&A, there was a performance of 'Oh Bondage! Up Yours!', and the audience were meant to sing along, using the lyric sheets that had been left on the chairs. We weren't good or loud enough though. I think people were a bit inhibited. It was good fun though, sort of punk performance art imbued with a sort of Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation dynamic.

Afterwards, we were gently but firmly ushered out into the adjoining room, where I started to think about how I should be introducing myself to people and that but, as usual, stood awkwardly in a corner hesitating instead. I saw Katy Carr again, and chatted to her friend Alex for a while, and Helen introduced me to a very nice pair of fanzine aficionados, who were probably in their early twenties. I tried to sell them a copy of Ablaze! 11 but they were put off by how professional it looked. We had a lovely chat though. The girl went over to talk to Jane Woodgate, and the boy and I sadly commiserated on our lack of ability to do likewise. Not long after that I left because I was feeling paranoid about missing my train home.

I got to Euston at about quarter past nine. They hadn't announced the platform for the Manchester train so I ate my cheese sandwiches while gazing fixedly at the announcements screen. There was some delay in getting the train prepared after it's previous journey in, which automatically made me think that someone must have been sick on one or more of the seats. We didn't get very long to get onto the train at all in the end, less than five minutes I reckon. And, of course, first class is always the end of the train nearest the station end of the platform, and standard is always the furthest away. Carriage B was so far away that I hopped on at E and walked through the remaining carriages in the end.

The train home was full of students, or, student aged folk. On the way down I'd been sitting across the aisle from some slightly noisy business folk, who drank wine all the way to Euston, so students on laptops and phone, or sleeping slumped across each other, was a massive improvement. Much quieter.  
That said, I had my mp3 player on both ways.

I'd decided not to get off at Stockport because the area around Stockport train station is such a building site it would be too hairy to navigate in the dark. So I got off at Piccadilly, still with my headphones in because I was just finishing off an episode of Undone (appropriately), went down the escalators to the taxi rank, walked past the taxis and a very loud couple having a proper violent row. I still had my headphones in, but I could hear them over the top of it, as well as the bloke at the bus stop, who was watching them, and quite clearly said 'Dick' (or was it 'Twat'?) in a very disgusted voice. I figured I'd see how long I had to wait for a 192 and take it from there: Thirty seconds, somewhat unusually. The bus wasn't crowded, but a group of really loud blokes, who looked vaguely Spanish but who were possibly Hungarian (it was France V Hungary in Euro 2016  that day) got on so I kept my headphones in. Someone started smoking a fag but I was too weary to react or get off the bus, so I just put up with it. It was about midnight by this point.

I got home at 00:15, rang my mum, took my makeup off, did my teeth, and went to bed. I was too excited to sleep for ages, but I eventually nodded off.

Very reluctantly got up at 7:00 again to go to work. Felt very tired and muggy headed, but somehow got through the day.

Afterword: #1

There will be second showing of the She Punks film as part of the Punk Weekender at the Roundhouse in July.  I urge you to see it if you possibly can.

Afterward: #2

Some of you may be wondering what UK cities outside of London are doing to mark 40 Years Of Punk. I haven't checked everywhere, but Manchester has an annual punk festival which happened in April, and has sod all to do with the 40 Years Of Punk thing. On 6music earlier this month, Radcliffe and Maconie, both lads whose formative years coincided with punk and who can be seen to have grown up in the loosely defined area of Greater Manchester, did a broadcast from the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester to mark the 40th Anniversary of the legendary Pistols gig there.

Because 2106 marks the 20th anniversary of the IRA bombing of Manchester City Centre, much of the cultural output this year is focused on that. Including a very innovative series of events at Manchester Histories Festival and HOME.